


What it means to be alive

by phisen



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Halloween 2017, M/M, Reunions, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phisen/pseuds/phisen
Summary: His ears are hearing their pulse. The low and dull whisper of blood coursing through veins, a collective sound making him heady. That is where they differ. That sound is what makes them to be seen as being alive. That sound is what creates the divide, why he can never be one of them. For he is a predator in a sea of prey.And then, despite the cacophony, he hears something else. Something not sounding like the thewooshfollowing theba-dum. It is a noise, a white noise, a frequency wanting to get through. Something calling. No, someone. Instantly, he knows that it is what he has been looking for whilst walking the earth, seemingly without plan nor reason. Not knowing if he would get the chance to make that connection, ever again.He sends out a thought. A question, trying to connect with that frequency."Are you there?"





	What it means to be alive

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [TenchiKai](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TenchiKai/pseuds/TenchiKai) for being my beta. Highly appreciated!

He is nothing but a man. A common man. A man with desires, dreams and principles, just like anyone else. A man with a place to call his own. A man who has seen the world, a man with an open mind and a philanthropic heart.

That was what he'd told them, the unfortunates who asked. They had become quite a few over the years, the unfortunates, and it was always the same. They became drawn to him, always by curiosity or shallow infatuation. Trying to get close, to find out more about him but not knowing what they were to find, once they did. It always ended in an intricate lie, woven and perfected that it almost became true. A discovery lost as soon as it was found.

For the unfortunates aren't allowed to see what he is. Not again. Never again. On the outside, he is cool and perfected. Not tarnished by what he has seen, experienced and done. On the inside, he's full of regrets, longing and desperation. And he carries it with him, has carried it with him, for as long as he can remember.

Before, it had been easier. Before, he saw them as amusing. Before, when he had indeed been nothing but a man, though seeing himself as something more. Something extraordinary, that in the end made him a victim of his own grandiosity. That were lifetimes ago. Lifetimes upon lifetimes, days counting up to months, then years, then decades, then centuries. Oh, how he would love to forget. To remember, to relive it all. To make it all undone.

He raises his head and takes it in. The playground. The hunting ground. Now donned in neon lights, vibrating due to ear-deafening sounds, smells assaulting him as he tries to ignore them. Yes, the place is looking so different since last time.

_Last time._

A memory flashes by. Even though it couldn't have lasted more than a fraction of a second, he remembers it all. Every excruciating detail is playing on his retinas, makes his brain see the connections. A movie on the inside, made for him and no one else.

It's strange how memories work, he thinks to himself, the fleeting thought doing an annoying lap of victory. Although this particular memory has been gone forever, erased both consciously and unconsciously most probably, he understands that he never had allowed himself to forget. Not entirely. For there's something important in that memory.

He had seen him there, for the first time. And for the first time, he had opened his eyes. Seen possibilities. Making them his by letting himself jump through time. Seeing moment upon moment where it would all just… fit. The possibility of the two of them. Together. But now, the small shacks had become high-rises. The muddy road was paved. The beggars and the whores were still there though; the beggars not asking for money but attention instead, and the whores were just as forward but strangely, not for sale.

He follows the crowd, finds himself close to being caught in the sea of people as it crosses the road. His eyes flickers over the crowd, a whirlpool of heroes, beasts, damsels. Tonight, he tries to be one of them too, and so far, he blends in perfectly without much effort.

His ears are hearing their pulse. The low and dull whisper of blood coursing through veins, a collective sound making him heady. That is where they differ. That sound is what makes them to be seen as being alive. That sound is what creates the divide, why he can never be one of them. For he is a predator in a sea of prey.

And then, despite the cacophony, he hears something else. Something not sounding like the the  _woosh_  following the  _ba-dum_. It is a noise, a white noise, a frequency wanting to get through. Something calling. No, some _one_. Instantly, he knows that it is what he has been looking for whilst walking the earth, seemingly without plan nor reason. Not knowing if he would get the chance to make that connection, ever again.

He sends out a thought. A question, trying to connect with that frequency.

_"Are you there?"_

Cars honking, laughs and screams, the city's pulse trying its best to drown it out. After a while, standing with his back against a storefront window, he laughs at himself. It was probably his wishful thinking. His need to relive what he thought he would never have the chance to. How silly.

Whilst a flock of girls, he can't guess people's ages anymore, clambers onto him while a male companion takes a picture, his mind wanders even though it should be focused and razor sharp. Especially now. It's been an eternity, but still, just a minimal dot on the lifeline of humanity when he lastㅡ

_"I'm here."_

_"Where?"_  Thoughts are fantastic. They can never ruin anything, reveal your state of mind. They are always your own voice in your own head, calm and collected, even though they happen to be addressing someone else.

_"Where do you think?"_

He knows.

_"Stay. Stay this time."_

_"For a while. I'm about to leave, so hurry."_

And he does. Strange how he still remembers where to go when everything is so vastly different. He runs down streets, crossing others. Rounding corners, diving into alleyways, avoiding people and trying to do the same with the attention he draws to himself.

He knows where to stop but not where to go once he does, for the white noise brings out an image. A flatline. It makes him ask another question.

_"Up?"_

_"Up."_

With a slight bend of the knees, he takes off. Not caring if anyone sees him, for this night is made for curious things happening in the eyes of men. His eyes are elsewhere though, looking straight up into the sky, hoping to see something else once he passes the edge of the roof.

Soundlessly, he lands on the ledge. His gaze scanning, seeing through the darkness. Wanting to believe what he has heard inside, what he already knows to be the truth.

"Come out. I said, come out!" He scoffs internally. Thoughts are better. The desperation in his voice makes him feel weak. He is nothing like that, although, with him, it has always been the opposite. That's what seeps out if him, makes him loathe himself just a little bit more.

"I'm here," he hears from across the open space. "The Phantom of the Opera? You are so predictable."

Then he sees what he thought he never would do again.

If he had a heart, it would stop, skip or clench in that moment. There's something that happens when he sees the narrow shoulders he once had held in his hands. Those dark, slanted eyes he'd gazed into for centuries. Those lips that had whispered questions, too many to count, always during the shivering moment when night became dawn, always seeking words of comfort in return.

"You look well," he says simply.

He receives nothing but a smile in return. Up there, the lights of the living almost don't reach them. Nevertheless, he sees a flash of teeth, glinting in the dull light from the veiled moon.

"Have you fed?"

"No."

The answer makes him laugh. Or not really laugh, it's more like a chuckle. Some things never change.

"I've heard they're after you," he continues.

"You're well informed. As always."

"I just listen."

They stand like that for a while. He likes to think that they're watching each other. Assessing each other. Trying to spot differences even though impossible. When not having to think nor worry about trivial things such as time and death, a while can feel brief or never ending but it has never affected them. That much is certain.

"Why," he finally asks. A question long overdue, a question he'd been thinking about off and on for five hundred years or so. Not that he was counting. "Why, Yuuri?"

"I needed to. End it, I mean."

"Why?!"

He's dressed entirely in black, but not dressed up, in heavy materials. It's making him look even smaller. Maybe he is smaller than before, the need to touch to find out becomes unbearable but he strangles it. That, he knows how to.

As he comes closer, that elusive small frame, his feet not making any sounds at all, he just passes him and sits down on the ledge. No touch, not by hands, eyes or mind. His feet are dangling out in the empty space.

Oh, if he had a heart, he would love him. Those eyes, those shoulders, those feet.

"When I first saw you, Victor, I was mesmerized," he hears him speak from below. "You looked like moonlight on the surface of a pitch black lake. Like a swan among crows. Radiant. Glorious. Like the only thing that could save me. It took a while for me to understand that the blackness of the surface was a part of you too. Your feathers weren't pure."

"I asked you a question," he says, annoyed. Not knowing if it's because of his emotions, or the shadows of them rather, are getting the best of him or if... the both if them falling into roles long lost. Forgotten? Despised! "I think you owe me an answer."

Again, a pressing silence. But it feels good, not being alone. Although their interaction is like looking at a reflection, something mirroring something already dysfunctional.

He breaks the silence after a while, the small-framed, black-haired wonder. And when he does, he speaks with a fire. With a resentment. "You took my life!"

This again. Anything but this.

How could two beings, being so close that they were, even sharing the same blood, look upon his greatest achievement, his life's work, his one true passion so differently?

Hearing the fire in the accusation, the one that was true, the one he would never deny, made him flare up as well. "I gave you life! You begged me to!"

"And I asked for you to make it undone! Don't you remember?!"

Of course, he remembered. How it started with the pleading, the bargaining. How it, after the fact, turned into threats and demands. How it ended with violence and brutality. How they had to let each other go, although they were bound to each other through one being the maker and the other, the creation.

"I  _wanted_  you," he replied.

"You wanted a plaything. Someone who could walk beside you, not bothered by the leash."

"You. Approached. Me. You seduced me."

"I was interested in you, true. Your beauty. Your knowledge. But I never asked for this. To walk the earth forever, confined in this body, frozen in time. To never see another sunrise. To feed on my fellow man."

"The side of you that you never wanted to let go. You were too good for me. Too human. Too pure. That was always your problem, love."

It sounded so natural, so natural that he didn't even notice it at first. And how could it not, a habit being formed over centuries doesn't die just because someone implores it to. Not when it's the truth, when it always had a purpose. But those dark eyes said everything when they suddenly met him at his level.

_"Don't. Please."_

He studied him then. Finally, up close. Time could never touch them, that he knew. But their eyes were always colored by what they've seen, or trying not to. So was his, those dark eyes that caught him countless of years ago. Specks of red now fighting with the brown. That was new.

His hair is longer than when he last had his eyes on him, down to his shoulders. Tucked behind his ear on the right side. Still as unruly, still as black. But he looked so frail. So small. So insignificant. With that greyish complexion, one that made his natural colour nothing more than a fleeting memory, it was obvious that he hadn't fed for quite some time.

"Why did you do it?"

The change had happened quite some time ago, when people's minds became open to take in other things. When people became aware of the beings lurking the dark weren't simple imaginary constructs. It all started with him, his resentment towards what he'd become. The stories, the reported sightings, the predators becoming the prey. And now, the disgusting romanticism, people monetizing the mythos of their kind, with a blatant disregard to sacrifices made.

All because of him, that creation of his. Maybe that's his sin, for what he needs to atone. That, and nothing else. For creating him.

"We don't deserve to live. You know that, Victor."

"Is it worth it? Being hunted? Or is it just your messiah complex, your self hatred that drives you?" He lets out a sigh as he shakes his head. To him, the situation is beyond bizarre. "They probably know you're here, having this conversation with me. Not even I can protect you if they come. Though… I would die trying."

"I wouldn't let you."

"You just said that we don't deserve to live."

He notices him avert his eyes only to peer up at him, those specks of red barely visible through the veil the dark lashes make.

"You deserve everything. But not me."

He remembers when they had stood like this once, this close to each other. One emitting heat and the other relishing the fact. One begging to be saved and the other obliging without a second thought. It only happened once. Even though it should have been different, for one of them couldn't be considered to be naive.

"I made you."

"You don't own me."

"I haven't made anyone else," he says, out of breath by the words. This ultimate truth feeling like the most important thing he could ever let escape from the depths of him. "Only you."

Then, it happens. Cold fingertips against his frozen jaw, then a palm adding pressure. Hands removing the mask, dropping it off the ledge. Dark eyes looking into his, into him, burying themselves into what's left. And it feels just like before. Before, when they both enjoyed it, their new eternity forced upon them. When an eternity wasn't enough, could never be enough.

He exhales as he rests his forehead on that shoulder, that shoulder that feels so small but always acted so much stronger than both of his. That's a fact, for he made him, not the other way around. He was the one being left, not the other way around. He was the one being found, not the other way around. He has always been the one begging, he realises. Just not overtly.

And with that epiphany, he does it again. Deprived of shame. Looking into eyes that once was next to his whilst falling asleep and waking up, in a seemingly endless, but all too brief, repeat.

"Let me drip for you. Please, Yuuri. Please."

Those dark eyes widen, and stays that way. Still lost in his. He suddenly remembers something, something forgotten and not for them. How heartbeats felt and the moment is as long as one, but not two, before the dark eyes narrow.

"It… I…"

"Please," he whispers, his lips brushing against his, his fingers lost amidst the sea of black strands.

The small touches spark something, something familiar. Something that feels like a heat, although impossible. Something that feels like coming home. Something that feels like… just like before.

He hears him breathe, accelerated and strained. Feels it too, against his cheek.

"N-no, it's not right. This is not right."

Those are words of self-deception, he thinks to himself. It has never been wrong, not between them. But he's like that, that creation of his. Worrying too much, trying desperately to make them fit into what he considers to be right.

"The wrist. You don't have toㅡ"

He's interrupted by an icy hand on his, the one lost in the darkness of his hair. He can see that he wants, the look is hungry. Famished. Ravenous, when his sleeve gets forced up to his elbow, exposing what once gave him life and ecstasy ever after. But he doesn't give in, not more than having his wrist so close to his mouth that his breath caresses it, that his tongue just momentarily touches it. But he doesn't latch on, he doesn't clamber onto him.

So, he rips himself open. With a quick motion, his wrist is against his own mouth and he bleeds. He feels the smell, the curious smell of his curse and his salvation, as it flows down his hand and ends up on the ground, dripping off his fingertips. It smells of every single one he's ever taken, every single life sustaining his.

The dark eyes widen and the small frame staggers. Just the two odd steps. He's torn, that much is obvious, for he probably doesn't want to be that intimate. Although that's probably the only thing pounding in his ears, the need to get closer.

"Take it," he says, offering himself to him with his arm outstretched, trying to ignore his own reactions that are ravaging him inside. "If they come, you can get away."

The distance is closed between them, and he can only watch as he falls to his knees at his feet. His hair falls over his face, the darkness of it curtaining it, obscuring it. His fingers are touching the small puddle on the ground now, in quiet reverence. Then, his hands beg for his, the one that drips. His pale lips are touching his drenched fingers, his messy palm, all in crimson. He licks his lips. Cleans them, makes him enter him, again and again, but he doesn't take the leap. Except for making noises that makes it seem like he already has.

"Suck," he implores him between the touches those lips make. "Take it. Take _me_."

The force surprises him when he does. When he indeed takes it, takes him. He's pulled down, and braces himself with his other hand as his knees touches the ground. He's almost on top of him, but he braces. Braces with all he's got because he respects him that much. He knows that he wouldn't want it to be like before, so he tries to be the one in control.

The pain from how he feeds, how insatiable he is, makes him grit his teeth. He feels his nails dig into him as his teeth do the same. It's like being torn apart, the most wonderful pain following the most beautiful sound.

"Victor, Victor, Victor," his voice gargles, calling his name like an incantation.

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I know, Yuuri. I know," he tries, his breath stuck somewhere in between pleasure and pain. "Empty me, take it, as much as you want."

The sounds he makes, the sight of him, the feel of having him pressed against his pulse… Once, when he was what to be considered as alive, he had his fair share of corporeal unions. They were nothing like this, they can't possibly be compared to this. They were like a warm summer breeze and this, like being carried away by a typhoon. The intensity, the sheer desperation, the carnal need… maybe this is what it means to be alive?

He stops bracing.

He puts his lips to the side of his neck. He smells different now, looks different too. He is inside him, coursing through him. Adding colour to his canvas, once more. He wants to take him too. Take him in, make him leave a dash of colour on him.

He doesn't ask for permission because somewhere, that white noise that will always be theirs and theirs alone, hums in agreement.

When his teeth sink through the delicate skin, rips open the jugular, he tries his best to remember. How it felt to come, when being alive. How it was a race, an expedition to reach the top of that torturous mountain before just throwing oneself over, out into the open. When his teeth sink through the delicate skin, he's already there. He's over, under, in, out, lost, found.

They writhe, wanting the other to be still, to not fight it. They cry, needing to let their rapture express itself, for it's impossible to withhold such a force. They move, because they are hunters, feasting on their prey.

When they let each other loose, when they are sated, emptied and filled anew, they remain entwined. Listening to the other's breathing, feeling him inside.

"You were hungry," he finally sighs into his neck, when he gains dominion over himself.

"You were alone," comes the reply. Simple and to the point, just like him.

"What now?" He props himself up on an elbow and looks down, into eyes where red fights brown.

"You're a mess. I'm all over you."

He laughs at the comment.

"Red has always suited you, Victor," his creation continues. "Something happens with your eyes when you wear red."

"Your red has always been my favorite colour."

"Hm." There's a hint of a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

"I still know what yours is."

"Oh?"

"Yes. How could I forget?"

They end up being silent after that, just looking at each other. Observing what they are doing to each other, when they are mixed together inside. Seeing the ramifications as they dance and swirl within.

"I would love to see it, once."

"Your favorite colour?"

He nods solemnly, his dark eyes closing. A tear trickling down his cheek, leaving a trail of maroon in its wake.

"Then… why don't we? See it together, I mean?"

The dark eyes fling open, instantly locked on his. Vibrating as the words make themselves understood inside him.

"You wouㅡ"

"Yes. If I'm with you." He touches his lips with his thumb. "I don't have anything to fear. Not anymore."

"Yes," he finally says, low. Almost inaudibly. "Do we, um… stay here or…?"

"Why not? Do you have somewhere else in mind?"

"No," he laughs, which is strange considering, "this is fine. This is where it started."

"Yes. I knew you would say that. Come, sit up."

It feels like before, when they were new. Having him between his legs, his back pressed against his chest. Arms around that small frame of his, pulling him close. The smell of his black hair and nothing else.

"Are you ready?" The question is unnecessary, he knows that, but he needs to steady himself. Trust his decision. Trust _their_ decision.

"Yes, I am," he replies, his hands squeezing his even tighter.

This is better than before when they could sit like that for hours, watching the moon. This is better, for this is what it means to be alive. Being together with the one you love. Together, watching the sun rise in the east.


End file.
